Airana Ngarewa

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Articles

Stuck in the middle with reo

Sep 21, 2024 | e-tangata.co.nz | Airana Ngarewa

Books for te reo Māori readers tend to cater either to those at the beginning of their learning journey — or those at the other end of the scale: expert readers, translators, teachers and orators. But what about everyone who’s stuck somewhere in the middle? Airana Ngarewa reflects on the gap in reo reading material, and the work he’s doing to bridge it. Learning to speak te reo Māori is a mission. It must be among the hardest things I’ve tried to do.
In the Frame: Opening WORDs

Aug 27, 2024 | wordchristchurch.co.nz | Airana Ngarewa |Catherine Taylor |Talia Marshall |Tayi Tibble

“Imagination is a form of courage” – Janet FrameOn the day that marks the centenary of the trailblazing Aotearoa writer Janet Frame’s birth, our festival guests Catherine Taylor (UK), Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe (USA), Tayi Tibble (Te Whānau ā Apanui, Ngāti Porou) Talia Marshall (Ngāti Kuia, Rangitāne o Wairau, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Takihiku) and Airana Ngarewa (Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāruahine, Ngā Rauru) explore their own moments of imagination and courage.
Airana Ngarewa: “Whatever I did, it was enough to disturb Nan’s long sleep”

May 8, 2024 | nzherald.co.nz | Airana Ngarewa

Indomitable: Airana Ngarewa hopes he has an ounce of his Nana Colleen's determination. Photos / supplied I didn’t really know my Nana Colleen before she had her stroke, leaving half her body permanently paralysed and her speech restricted to only a purseful of words. I was only six weeks old. By all accounts she was a powerful woman, her list of accomplishments as long then as her list of great-grandchildren is now. She was the first Pākehā ever to marry into the Ngarewa family.
Short story: b-ball, by Airana Ngarewa

Jan 26, 2024 | newsroom.co.nz | Airana Ngarewa

I was jamming some b-ball one day down at the local park when a lil fella rocked up out of nowhere. He sat in the corner of the court in the shade of an overgrown Christmas tree. Weirdo kid sat there for ages, not saying a word. I sunk a few, missed a few more and he stayed there, watching me. No shoes on his feet. No shirt on his back. A mess of curly black hair half-fallen over his face.
Legacies of peace: Māori king’s Parihaka visit strengthens a special bond

Nov 21, 2023 | thespinoff.co.nz | Airana Ngarewa

Kīngi Tūheitia’s visit to Parihaka on Saturday was the first of his reign, but it followed a long tradition of goodwill between the Kīngitanga and Taranaki that grew out of a shared commitment to peace, writes Airana Ngarewa. For the first time in his reign, the Māori king, Tūheitia Potatau Te Wherowhero VII, visited Parihaka on Saturday November 18.
Making te reo Māori official

Sep 14, 2023 | thespinoff.co.nz | Airana Ngarewa

This wiki o te reo Māori, Airana Ngarewa looks back on how the revitalisation efforts began. Te reo Māori was not made an official language of Aotearoa New Zealand until 1987. This was 15 years after the Māori language petition was presented at the steps of parliament by Hana Te Hemara, an act that marked the beginning of Te Wiki o te Reo Māori – at the time celebrated as Māori Language Day.
Growing up in the wops

Sep 2, 2023 | e-tangata.co.nz | Airana Ngarewa

Author Airana Ngarewa grew up in Pātea, rural Taranaki. For him, living out in the wops meant living with the accusing eyes of farmers defending stolen land from the ones they stole it from. Here he is writing about how that inspired his first novel, The Bone Tree. When I was writing The Bone Tree, I went for a run on the rural roads of Taranaki, around the block Mum and Dad live on.
The stories behind the traditional place names of Te Papakura o Taranaki

Aug 23, 2023 | thespinoff.co.nz | Airana Ngarewa

A landmark change in status for the area once known as Egmont National Park will also officially restore many original te reo place names. Airana Ngarewa explains the significance behind five of them. In 1865, the crown confiscated what was effectively the whole of Taranaki in retribution for rebelling against the crown. This included the maunga for which the region is named.
The Bone Tree by Airana Ngarewa

Aug 17, 2023 | nzreviewofbooks.com | Kelly Ana Morey |Airana Ngarewa

It wasn’t all that long ago that a year could go by without a single novel by a Māori writer; Māori literature felt as though it was in crisis. Now it seems as though a month doesn’t pass without a book – poetry, fiction or non-fiction – by a Māori writer arriving hot off the press. Some books are quality writing, and of course this is marvellous.
From cage fighter to novelist: Why I wrote The Bone Tree

Aug 12, 2023 | thespinoff.co.nz | Airana Ngarewa

Airana Ngarewa explains how self-imposed suffering steered him towards books, and then writing his just-launched debut novel, The Bone Tree. I loathed English in school. There wasn’t a single year from first to 13th that I enjoyed, not a single book I read that resonated with me, not a single sentence I stumbled upon that got anything more out of me than an eyeroll. Some of it was the runoff of my schooling experience more broadly. School was the reason my whānau had lost the reo.